Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Time As Friend Or Enemy

Here's the reality. In traditional publishing if you aren't a hit immediately (4-6 weeks), they pulp your book and won't give you the rights back for about 15 years. Time is your enemy. In self-publishing you have 100 years to find your audience. Time is your friend and ally.

That was a short discussion.

I just finished Thomas Greanias' first novel, Raising Atlantis. I liked it very much in the beginning but I'm not good at imagining architecture and action scenes so I was lost and bored by the middle and skimmed to the end. I could tell it was marvelous, just not my kind of thing. I'll probably finish the series though because it was at least that good. In action books, there's not much characterization. I guess no one wants it. I didn't like the female in this book at all. I hate it when dogs are killed as plot points. So there wasn't that much glue to keep my attention sticking around. And there was a whole group of characters I just don't want to hear about in any context, medium or venue. I guess upon reflection there were a lot of negatives but the positives were strong.

As digital sales surge, publishers are casting a worried eye towards the previously scorned self-published market. Unlike five years ago, when self-published writers rarely saw their works on the same shelf as the industry's biggest names, the low cost of digital publishing, coupled with Twitter and other social-networking tools, has enabled previously unknown writers to make a splash.

Oh how dare I compete with Michael Connelly and John Grisham! My pixels aren't fit to be near their pixels!

Previously unknown and scorned by the elites in publishing for not conforming to their arbitrary standards.

There. I fixed it for ya.

"When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I'm as good as them," says John Locke. "Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me."

They're not 10 times better than me.

Here's what Rush Limbaugh always says. "They will tell you who they fear." By mocking, demeaning and attacking that person or activity mercilessly, relentlessly, they tell you where their soft spot is. Who are "they"? Decide for yourself. But one thing is certain for the purposes of this blog, traditional publishing is scared sleepless over digital self-publishers.